A lot has changed since the turn of the century twenty years ago. The average person today receives over 60 emails per day, and the number of instant messages, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Slack notifications can be overwhelming. Yet with so many new inputs and digital distractions, the way we manage all these inputs has not changed in over twenty years.
Set a custom event duration from Todoist on a task by task basis by typing something like 80m into the task name. When you save the task, “80m” will be removed from the task name and a new Google Calendar event will be created with a duration of 1 hour and 20 minutes. For now, this will only work using “m” (for minutes). With Time Doctor, you can easily keep track of how much time you and/or each person in your company spends on their Todoist projects and tasks. Although this page explains how to use Time Doctor to track time spent on Todoist tasks for teams, everything explained here applies equally to you if you're using Todoist for your own personal use.
Most productivity advice recommends we organise our tasks by projects, and given the definition of a project is any task that requires two or more steps to complete, this means we now have hundreds of projects to manage. Just keeping on top of all those projects takes up a disproportionate amount of time each day, leaving us with precious little time to get on with the work we are trying organise.
There must be a better, more effective way to manage our work in 2020. Well, there is.
Introducing the Time Sector Method.
The TimeSector Method does not organise your work by project. Instead, it holds your tasks by when you are going to do them—a much more natural and intuitive way to manage your work.
If you think about it, the only thing that matters is when you will do a task. The only factor that will tell you whether you can do a task or not is available time. It does not matter how much intention, motivation or inspiration you have to complete a task; if you don’t have time to complete it you will not complete it.

When you organise by project tasks often end up in a project folder only to be lost and forgotten. With a time sector, a task can be evaluated by when you will do it and whether you have enough time to do it based on what your current priorities are.
Simplicity built-in
Processing your collected tasks is simple. You only need to decide when you will do a task:
Do you need to do it this week? Add a day you will do it and put it in this week’s sector.
Can it wait until next week? Put it in next week’s sector.
Are you not sure yet? Put it in this month’s sector.
Can it wait until next month? Put it in next month’s sector.
Does it not need doing until later in the year? Put it in your long term sector.
When you are engaged in doing work, you only need to refer to one place—this week’s sector—and focus on completing those tasks. As long as you clear out this sector by the end of the week you are getting your work done, your priorities are moving forward, and nothing is forgotten.
Built-in routines and areas of focus
There are tasks you have to perform on a daily, weekly or monthly basis that do not take your work or goals further forward—things like washing the car, taking the garbage out, paying your bills etc. With the Time Sector Method, you create a sector for your recurring routines and areas of focus, so they just come up when you need to see them, so you do not have to reorganise these every week or month.

Then there are your areas of focus, tasks that do move you towards achieving your goals and work projects. With these, you establish the critical tasks—the tasks that drive 80% of your progress—and make them recurring tasks that appear in your day view when they need to be completed.
Wait! Where do I manage my projects?
Good question. Projects are managed in your notes app. A much more logical place to manage projects. Your notes app can hold images, files, links, meeting notes, Gantt charts and progress bars. You can brainstorm ideas, review where a project is and share notes with your colleagues, so your list of tasks is not compromised by well-meaning co-workers and bosses.
As you are developing your goals and projects, you can add tasks that need doing directly to the relevant sector. As long as you are doing a short daily and weekly planning session consistently, nothing will be missed, and tasks will be completed on time.
The Time Sector Method is a productivity system fit for the twenty-first century. Designed for simplicity and created to give you more of your time back so you can get your work done on time and without the stress, overwhelm and organising older productivity systems create.
The Time Sector course will show you:
How to set up your time sectors
How to use your areas of focus and routines folders
How to collect your tasks and process them into their right time sector
How to use the Time Sector Method
How to do the daily planning session
How to use dates with your “This Week” time sector
How to do the weekly planning session
How to manage your goals and projects
How to set up the Time Sector Method in Apple Reminders
How to set up the Time Sector Method in Microsoft To-Do
How to set up the Time Sector Method in Todoist
The Time Sector Method is an intuitive, simple productivity system created so you can spend more of your time doing your work and less time processing and organising. It is designed for the challenges we all face today with so many distractions and interruptions, and it is designed to put you back in charge of your time so you can spend more of it doing the things you want to do.
The Time Sector course launched today and costs $49.99
If you are ready to let go of the past and outdated productivity systems and to build a simple productivity system based on the COD framework of collect, organise and do the Time Sector Method is the right system for you.
The Time Sector Method - Designed for the world we live in today.
Dates in Todoist can sometimes be a bit confusing. Here you will find a complete overview of the date formats and the ways of using dates in Todoist.
Note: I recommend to bookmark this post so that you can easily find it when you are struggling with dates in Todoist.
How to set dates in Todoist
Todoist Duration Formula
You can set dates in Todoist using the calendar/date selector, or by using natural language.
Todoist will automatically recognize and add due dates as you type them into a task name. This feature is called Smart date recognition. You can turn this feature on or off by going to Settings / General / Smart date recognition.
Disabling Smart date recognition for a single task

Sometimes, Todoist’s Smart date recognition can be a source of irritation. Let’s say the task is “Finish monthly expense report” By the time you type “Finish mon” Todoist will have interpreted this as a task named “Finish” that is due on Monday. To avoid this, press backspace or delete on your keyboard, or tap the highlighted word on your phone or tablet.
Natural language formats
Relative dates
Write | To get |
tod | Today’s date |
today | Today’s date |
today at 9 | Today at 09:00 (or 9 am) |
tom | Tomorrow’s date |
tomorrow | Tomorrow’s date |
tomorrow at 21:00 | Tomorrow at 21:00 (or 9 pm) |
next week | Next Monday (or what you have specified as the start of the week in settings.) |
end of month | The last day of the current month |
next month | The first day of the next month |
Specific dates
Write | To get |
25 feb | 25. February current year |
feb 25 | 25. February current year |
25th | The 25th day of the current month |
feb 13 2019 | 13. February 2019 |
13.02.2019 | 13. February 2019 |
13/02/2019 | 13. February 2019 |
2019/02/13 | 13. February 2019 |
02/13/2019 | 13. February 2019 |
13-02-2019 | 13. February 2019 |
2019-02-13 | 13. February 2019 |
02-13-2019 | 13. February 2019 |
Specific days
Write | To get |
mon | Next Monday |
monday | Next Monday |
tue | Next Tuesday |
tuesday | Next Tuesday |
wed | Next Wednesday |
wednesday | Next Wednesday |
thu | Next Thursday |
thursday | Next Thursday |
fri | Next Friday |
friday | Next Friday |
sat | Next Saturday |
saturday | Next Saturday |
sun | Next Sunday |
sunday | Next Sunday |
Recurring due dates in Todoist
The only way to set recurring due dates in Todoist is by using natural language. I’m tempted to say that your imagination is the limit but to make it easy to get started, I have made some tables below.
Relative numbers
Write | To get |
every | Every day, week, month, etc |
every 2 | Every other day, week, month, etc |
every other | Every other day, week, month, etc |
every 3 | Every third day, week, month, etc |
every third | Every third day, week, month, etc |
every 4 | Every fourth day, week, month, etc |
every fourth | Every fourth day, week, month, etc |
every 5 | Every fifth day, week, month, etc |
every fifth | Every fifth day, week, month, etc |
every 6 | Every sixth day, week, month, etc |
every sixth | Every sixth day, week, month, etc |
every 7 | Every seventh day, week, month, etc |
every seventh | Every seventh day, week, month, etc |
every 8 | Every eighth day, week, month, etc |
every eighth | Every eighth day, week, month, etc |
every 9 | Every ninth day, week, month, etc |
every ninth | Every ninth day, week, month, etc |
every 10 | Every tenth day, week, month, etc |
every tenth | Every tenth day, week, month, etc |
… |
The use of ! (exclamation mark)
Thanks to the tip from Keith in the comment section, I can list a very useful function that was unknown to me: The format Every! will calculate the next occurrence from when you complete the task. Meaning that if you complete the task later than on the first due date, the next occurrence will be calculated from when you completed the previous task.
Specific dates and days
Write | To get |
every 1st | Every 1st of the month |
every last day | Every last day of the month |
every other monday | Every other Monday |
every morning | Every day at 09:00 (9 am) |
every evening | Every day at 19:00 (7 pm) |
every weekday | Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday |
every workday | Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday |
Setting start dates for non-recurring tasks in Todoist
Start dates for non-recurring tasks are actually not supported in Todoist. The dates above are all due dates. You have three options to get around this:
- Register the start date as the due date. When the task shows up, use the every day until <due date> to make the task repeat until the desired due date.
- Register the task with due date every day from <start date> to <due date> .
- Register the task with a due date and set a reminder for the start date.
Start and end dates for recurring tasks in Todoist
Write | To get |
every day starting december 01 | Every day from 1st of December |
every day ending december 01 | Every day starting today, ending 1st of December |
Every day for 4 weeks | Every day starting today, ending in 4 weeks |
Every day for 5 months | Every day starting today, ending in 5 months |
Every day from 01 december to 10 december | Every day starting 1st of December, ending on the 10th of December |
Set due dates in Todoist with Smart Schedule
The Smart Schedule function in Todoist is an AI-based function that helps you schedule or re-schedule your tasks. It learns over time, making better and better predictions. To learn more about the Todoist Smart Schedule function, visit this help article from Todoist.
Todoist Duration Plus
Dates in Todoist filters

For a complete overview of how to make filters in Todoist, please visit the below blog post.
The ultimate guide to Todoist filters
Read More
Date formats
- Given date: 15.01.2017
- Given date US format: 01/15/2017, Jan 15th
- Given date and time: 15.01.2017 16:00
- Given date and time US format: 01/15/2017 4 pm, Jan 15th 4 pm
- Relative date: yesterday, today, tomorrow
- Due Date: 2 days (due in the next two days), -2 days, (due in the past two days)
- Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Creation dates
- created:
- created before:
- created after:
Due dates
- due:
- due before:
- due after:
- next X days
- overdue
- recurring
- no date
Filtering on Creation dates
Query | Shows |
created: today | All tasks created today |
created before: -365 | All tasks created more than 365 days ago |
created after: 01/15/2017 | All tasks created after Jan 15th, 2017 |
Filtering on Due dates

Query | Shows |
due today | All tasks due today |
due before: Jan 15 | All tasks due before January 15 |
due after: 01/15/2017 | All tasks due after Jan 15th, 2017 |
due in 2 day | All tasks due in two days |
next 10 days | All tasks due in the next ten days |
overdue | All tasks that are overdue |
recurring | All tasks with recurring due date |
no date | All tasks without a due date |
!no date | All tasks with a due date |
